white teeth teens
by lydiamartins
Summary: HighSchool!AU; Luna wonders if she's really the villain of her own life - can't villains have happy endings too? / lunacentric, slight lunaneville, for jess!


**summary |** HighSchool!AU; Luna wonders if she's really the villain of her own life - can't villains have happy endings too? / lunacentric, slight lunaneville, for jess!

**this is for jess (autumn midnights) for the gge exchange 2014, with the preferred pairing of lunacentric, lunaneville - hope you like this! betaread by zee (skylight glory) and michy (Michy Drarry Shipper), (:**

**white teeth teens**  
lunacentric, slight lunaneville

i.

She sits in a biology classroom, twirling a pencil between her fingers and regards her other classmates with an aura of tranquility. A bell rings in the far distance, marking the end of another class period and Luna stares at the clock. Girls gather in a flock by the desks behind her, trading information about the celebrity boy who moved into the neighborhood a week back and recently joined their class. Mr. Filch assigns groups to go over the previous day's homework, a simple reading of some sort.

Luna numbly stares at the group assembled in front of her – she's only nine years old, and she already feels like she doesn't belong. Passing off the feeling as regret, while in the back of her mind, thinking that nine year olds shouldn't feel like this, she pulls out the homework. She answeres the questions for the group of girls, who have better things in their life than to do their homework and what they're told.

_His name's Harry Potter,_ one of the girls murmurs,_ he's got a scar on his face from one of those commercials – you know, those stunt acts in the movies?_ The other girls nod, in perfect unison, as though this is all rehearsed, which it might be. _He actually does them. He was in that action movie and that horror one, and he's just looking for something to apparently boost his reputation, so he came back to the small town from where he grew up, and he's going to be in our school, in our class. He's got green eyes, and an older brother named Dudley who's away at boarding. Mum said that he's our age, nine, our grade too!_

There's a knock at the door. A young boy walks in, stumbling awkwardly, a gaping hole where his two front teeth should be – _not much of a movie star,_ Luna thinks – and introduces himself calmly in front of the class. There's a bruise on his chin, covered underneath layers of powder. He's not that perfect. Nobody really is.

.

She walks over to his house once, a glass container of apple turnovers in her hand.

They're still warm, fresh out of the oven. Luna's quite sure that the Potter family doesn't need any more food, any more money; they're already doing well enough, as it is. She already told this to her mother, who just smiled down at her daughter and told her that something made from the heart can never be turned down. She knocks on the door and watches it squeak slightly as it opens.

It takes a minute for Luna to get her bearings in the new surroundings – the foyer of the house is larger than life; there's a mirror with crystallized diamonds forming a square-shaped border; and a light pop music tune manages to overwhelm the shouts in the background, until there is silence. There's a punch heard, and she sees glass shattering from the corner of her eye, peering over the butterfly staircase, her feet moving warily –_ your safe place, the place where you're loved most_ – then a yell with barely contained anger – _wasn't home anymore_ – and Luna lets the door close slowly behind her. The smell of the apple turnovers wafts through the house, as Luna unveils the container, placing it on a small coffee table.

She's not sure what's happening inside the house, but knows that it would be better, safer, not to interfere with the lives of other families. She tries telling herself that the next week when Harry comes to school with a bruise on his right arm and jokes that it was from a wrestling match with his big brother, Dudley. The other boys laugh about it, and the girls run away, disgusted.

For the Lovegoods, life has never been that bad.

They've had their days when dad's boss wouldn't give that much of a bonus at the end of the year or where her mother had a miscarriage, but they've always had food on their plates at the end of the day and more importantly, each other. Sometimes, Luna sits at the end of the dining table, munching slowly on a piece of pasta, and notices the tension between her parents – the way that they don't smile lovingly at each other anymore – and everything's wrong, suddenly. _She has six months_, they say, _six months to live._

For the first three, she's just angry – angry with her mother for being so selfish that she would think of leaving Luna for some better life in heaven, angry with her father for not telling her about this before, angry with herself for not being a proper ten year old and knowing when something's wrong with her mother. In a way, in the end, it always has to be somebody's fault, and there's nobody to blame it on but herself.

Her mother dies on a Tuesday.

Luna spends hours at the hospital, head crouched, praying over her mother's body to no avail – one minute, she's there, and then there's silence – no breath on the blade of a surgical instrument, wispy curls strewn all over the pillow, and the blue machine has a straight line – and she feels as though she can't breathe. This can't be the end, it just can't be this quick, this easy.

Her father starts spiraling dangerously out of control after the funeral – there are late nights at the office wherein he returns home in the middle of the night and then there are times when he doesn't come home at all. He's supposed to be her father, the type of person who's going to spoil _daddy's little girl_ and buy her fancy dresses and be the one that she goes to when her heart is broken – Luna learns quickly enough that that's not her father anymore. She's not that fortunate, and she'll have to adapt to the situation and apply herself if she's going to come out of this place, breathing.

ii.

She doesn't quite see the point of school, after a while.

The words on her paper blur, ink-stained teardrops scattered across her homework; teachers offer boxes of kleenex and homemade apple turnovers and pecan pies, white chocolates and store-bought pastas, condolences are sent through emails and sometimes, people come by the door to say a few words – it's all fake, Luna realizes, and there's no real point to anything, not anymore.

There's no point of going to middle school if college isn't going to happen – her father takes packets of money and hefty wallets filled with credit cards to the casino, coming back with nothing but guilt and regret in his pockets; a foolish lifestyle, as money falls down the drain and once it's gone, it's not coming back.

Eventually, the sessions of therapy are going to come to an end, and the teachers are going to stop taking pity on a ten-year old girl, reminding her that education is key to survival – but it really isn't. It doesn't matter how many good things that she's going to do in her life because money brings power, and power is the only way that she won't have to fall on her knees every afternoon, begging the landlord (because, it's only been two months, but her father quit his job, and they still can't afford to pay the rent) for another month to pay off the bills.

She disguises herself as an older individual, skipping school – the first time, it's not entirely her fault. She walks into the familiar courtyard that day, inhaling the scent of pine and the fresh chill of autumn which nips at her bare hands; it's then when she realizes the silence that is created when she walks by a certain group of individuals, who look at her with a combination of fake pity and disgust. After all, she's the girl whose mother died over the summer. Her acquaintances from a previous year of grade school look at her as though she's carrying a new plague and turn their heads ever so slightly, staring up at the sky, squinting as though the birds flying into darkness are positively captivating.

It's only the middle of seventh grade, and Luna feels like running – so she does.

She spreads her wings, and runs; runs past the football field with the jeering jocks and the cheerleaders who speak with mock sympathy, as fake as their nail and hair extensions, runs past the track field where a group of boys gather around a smaller one, runs until there's nowhere left to go. She's never been here, in this abandoned parking lot, with a small strip mall of some sort, but the chase is over now.

There's a boy sitting on the corner of the road – he has to be a few years older than her, at least; there's this look on his face, almost as if he's lost, too, and Luna's not quite sure what forces her to do this, but she walks to him, a small smile on her face. He looks up all of a sudden, and she sees the scar on his face, the familiar lightning bolt on his forehead and she runs in the opposite direction; this isn't supposed to happen in a life of an eleven year old. She doesn't want to admit the truth – the truth that life is horrible and that idolized child movie stars can have abusive adoptive parents and that her father's spiraling downwards, and maybe, so is she.

It doesn't quite matter anymore – she finds herself skipping school more often. By the age of thirteen, she has a sixty-seven percentage attendance rate; it's low enough that there are regular after-school detentions, which save her from going home earlier – but it's not quite home anymore, now is it? Not when her dad's still wandering around the house, a bottle in one hand, and a broken mind in the other (it's not entirely his fault, Luna thinks to herself, it never really is).

She's not sure why she goes to school in the first place – it's not as though she has friends in that sort of place; everybody fawns over the boy from the movie. Girls and boys start brushing lips with each other, and Luna thinks that she's never been more out of place in her life. She bothers with art class on the first Wednesday of every month and scrapes pencils and chalk onto the canvas until her mind and fingers are numb, chalk falling over her fingers, lightly coating her tattered garments – walking slowly out of the classroom, excusing herself to the bathroom, is routine.

She slips out of a tattered school uniform, discarding the trademark and the identification tag looped around her tag (because Luna's knowledgeable enough to know by now that anything that could relate her back to the academy would bring her back there) and lands on the tiled bathroom floor. A pair of ragged jeans paired, a beanie and an old sweatshirt which smells of cinnamon and death are replaced. Luna climbs out of the window, leaning across the wall, and finds herself on the rooftop. Then she jumps down into the courtyard near the back of the school. There are deserted hallways and empty corridors, filled during the passing periods, but for now, she revels in the silence, before sprinting away. She can't help but run from her problems, it's just who she is. There's a piece of paper in her pocket, a report card that she throws in the trash can.

Luna always comes back to school, though. There's no other place for her to go – the packets of money that her father (he's not dad anymore, because dad doesn't inject vials into his arms and bring home girls from work) occasionally brings home will always run out; nevertheless, if she didn't come back to school, the principal's office would call down her father. It wouldn't go very well, she assumes; her father would be on perfect behavior with the principal and react normally back at home, where the doors were closed and the walls were nearly sound proof.

The fear of being caught is exhilarating, rushing through the bloody soles of her feet – her Mary Jane shoes having long been discarded, kicked off by the curb – and the vile smell of smoke corrupts her broken lungs. Luna stumbles through the streets; the deserted parking lot is filled with limousines and tattered vehicles in the midst of another Tuesday. The perspiration beads on her forehead dry up from the scorching flame of the sun. She sits on the sidewalks sometimes, pulling on her jean shorts and old fashioned sweaters, scarves and shawls. A green blanket with a dragon print covers her frame and she sits, staring at a boy who has nothing but money and fame (but it's not quite worth it, at the price of being locked into a cupboard and hiding bruises with powders) and she's not quite so envious anymore.

She stares at individuals who pass through the parking lot – it's this little game that she plays with herself, finding out their stories by staring at the depth of them and examining their stance, the way that they react as they pass her, whether it's with a grimace of disgust or some sort of disguised version of faux pity for the poor, homeless girl (of which she is neither). There's a girl who passes by – an individual who can't be much older than herself – who stands with an aura of attitude, like one of those queen bees from the books and life that Luna lives – her story goes along the lines of;

.

(Everybody wants to be her. At the beginning of her life, it was already ruined.)

She sits in the back of a room, hands primly folded one top of another as she delicately laughs, raising a glass to the host and hostess of the fundraising event, and gently sipping the wine that burns the back of her throat. Holding a smile and eye contact for another seven seconds, she sets down the glass, and bounces into small talk with the lady adjacent to her. The lady, nevertheless, is impressed by the gentle grace and polite actions of the seven year old seated next to her, and bounds back into talk of the discussion of the newest fashion line by Ralph Lauren, and its newest models. The torment perhaps started at birth, but on the limousine ride back from the fundraising event, where her mother and father are primly seated opposite her, staring her down, alerting her to attention, is where it all begins. They are yelling at her now.

Her mother comments on how it is highly inappropriate for the youngest member of a family to toast the host and hostess of any occasion, as it can display how the rest of the family is inadequately supported in manners. Her father berates her on how horrible it was that her smiles were not lasting for the duration of the event, and how she was dripping falseness. Her mother continues on how they wish they just had a normal child, one that would act politely with everybody, and her father keeps on yelling on how she shouldn't be talking to older ladies and gentleman, and her mother argues about how her daughter should be perfect, and her father just wishes that they had never had a daughter in the first place.

At home now, she lies down on the purple duvet, afraid to crinkle it. Five minutes later, she knows that she is a mess, having run into the room at full speed, gently closing the door behind her, and falling to the floor, then onto the bed, hugging her pillow, pink, blue, and white, as if it could provide all the comfort and love that she had never received, and never would.

Perhaps, it is really her fault. She has recently come home from school. She is in fourth grade and has received the second-best score in her extended, gifted, and talented mathematics class in the standardized test, but second place is not enough for her parents – they only accept the best. Therefore, their youngest and only child knows that she will never be accepted, as long as she is not the best in whatever she does, whether it be sports, education, extracurricular activities. A lecture soon follows, about how her father would be so disappointed in her, that she, who has the most resources of any child in town, is coming home with one of the worst scores (because if you're not the best, it doesn't matter). She ends up weeping in front of them.

Her mother takes two of her daughter's fingers, and slams them down on the edge of the dinner table, watching in satisfaction as her daughter's fingers bleed, saying that this will happen daily unless she becomes the best, everything that her parents expect of her. Her father takes a knife, and cuts a little part of his only child's wrist, smiling all the while and telling his daughter not to dress so provocatively, and that now, she will be perfect. There is no other choice. At night, she begins writing in a diary, recording all her thoughts, all of her emotions into just one place. She writes it down, her formerly neat cursive characters becoming random scribbles in the dark of the night, as she writes everything down, hoping that everything will just stay perfectly imprinted in her diary, if nowhere else in her life.

For the first time, she lies. She lies to her parents about what her final report card grades will be in the eighth grade, about what her time on the fifty-yard dash would be, and about which friends she is associating herself with anymore, and for a moment, they look at each other in shock, as if they can't believe that their previously horrible daughter is doing so well, and for a moment, she thinks that they almost love her as they envelop her into an enormous hug, her mother profusely kissing the top of her only child's head. Lying gives her temporary rest, temporary satisfaction, temporary happiness.

Deep down, though, she knows that her parents will one day figure about the truth, and soon enough, they'll be hitting her and yelling at her, but she should have expected this from the very start – she thinks that she deserves this, calling them stressful, overprotective parents who only care about her getting into the best universities and having the best life possible, instead of abuse. She believes that this is expected. They are taking her on a walk. She knows that it is not some sort of familial unit gathering organization occasion, but more of a revenge tactic, to stop maliciously across the grass of their neighbor's, who have recently stomped upon their own grass several times. She does not understand why it is necessary in the first place, and spends as much time stalling as possible.

Not wanting to do the wrong thing has always resulted in not doing the wrong thing, which has always resulted in good fortune, according to all those fairy-tales and wonderful happy ending novels. Her mother is yelling at her now. Yelling at why it takes her daughter thirty hours to choose one outfit, and it's not even for a fancy occasion, it's just for taking a walk through the forest reserve, alone with only nature (she fears this), and then her father joins in, saying that it's none of her business why they are doing this, but they have always supported her, so she must always support them as well. (They have never supported her – never have, never would have, never will.) Do you still want to be her?

.

Luna grows obsessed with the individuals who pass by – their lives are interesting, to say the least, and it's something new for her; unlike all of the other children in her grade, her hobbies don't involve playing the violin at recitals or going on shopping binges; her obsessions are severe (once she fixates onto somebody, it gets bad – really bad).

The parking lot becomes a second home – a home away from a home, as people say; she grows to know the worn down streets and her blood drips down to sweet porcelain, polka dotted pajama pants and old sweaters which taste like medicine and cotton candy and fall over her frame, sitting in the middle of nowhere (but it's not quite nowhere). She skips school on another Friday – it's an insignificant day, really, but the younger students are doing a play for Mother's day – and she can't take it anymore. The one or two friends that she's managed to grasp onto, tightly, submitting to their wills, as if they're the only things that keep her from falling under, breaking down as her layers of insecurities are exposed, don't quite understand the truth – they never will – that it's not the easiest thing in the world to get over a death.

They offered their condolences – boxes of chocolates that Luna hastily indulged and even more hastily rinsed out of her system, flushing the toxins out through non-natural means – and teddy bears that have ripped out hearts. It was something along the lines of what they've practiced whenever a boy broke up with them – but they just don't get it. Nothing can replace her mother – not the tattered sweaters or the gold dresses that Luna snuggles into at night and spills alcohol over the next morning when her biological father stumbles into the room, knocking on the door and swearing loudly before he tears the hinges down, lunging at her in way that would have been comical if there was not a metal bullet in one of his hands and an empty bottle of scotch in the other.

She thinks that this would have been what her mother wanted – for her daughter, her only child, to find happiness in the world. She runs away once, just for a few days, at the age of fourteen (honestly, just to see if anybody would notice and do more than notify the answering machine at the house that unexcused absences would jeopardize Miss Lovegood's college enrollment applications, which she hasn't really thought about that much because there are more important things than going to college. Like, having the money to survive and not have to beg for food on the streets, or maybe finding a life outside of dealing jobs, something that mere children could do without questions, but not her – and nobody really understands that).

She's sitting on a Friday, outside of the candy shop with a bottle of gummy bears on one side and a box of cold spinach on the other – it's enough for a week, she supposes, and fingers the slimy texture slowly, wondering how long it would take before her body broke down and she was hospitalized – grasped tightly in her hands as individuals pass by, mocking the little, scrawny girl without a family; a little nobody, they suppose. Luna fingers the gummy bear and her eyes skim past the nutrition facts, as she swallows them down her throat. There have been worse days, she thinks to herself, definitely worse days than having nutritious vegetables and delectable desserts.

When her mother was alive, she had told Luna that individuals should always be treated with the utmost respect, that it was better to give than to receive – those words don't exactly hold true anymore, because the world that her mother lived in was completely different. There's a household at the end of the street that she raids every now and then, when the family is out; there are porcelain dishes and a family portrait in the foyer of the house. She spends about five of her valuable minutes on the computer, snuggled in with the Holmes heater and typing aimlessly, looking for directions to cheap motels that don't charge more than five dollars a night, and embeds her nails into the comforter of the strangers' sofa, at the random objects scattered around the house. They're not the most well-off individuals in the world, but they certainly have a little more to give away to children who practically live on the streets – she takes a knife and slowly cuts her finger, a small drop of blood, needing the slightest pressure of pain to force herself to avoid fingering the china and the gold trophies which lie on top of a grand piano.

She's not quite that stupid – she might have skipped one-third of the seventh grade, but there are things that Luna's aware of; that pieces of paper, a small piece of paper with somebody's name on it and a few blueprint landscapes, a few pockets of green are enough to get anybody anywhere, and that the china vases and teapots which are in a sharp contrast to the ebony black of the piano would sell for enough for a train ticket to New York City, maybe even a little higher. Her biological father wouldn't come looking for her in Toronto or in Canada, or anywhere that would be too expensive and a waste of time to search. It's all in a blur, what happens next – she finds herself placing the pots and the golden embroidered skirts into a small bag, a burnt sienna colored suitcase near the back; there are directions on the laptop, and a red flicker signals the loss of battery, and suddenly there's no time to erase her shopping history. There's the sound of a garage opening, and the inserting of a key, and she jumps out of the back door in the nick of time, suitcase in one hand. She runs across the perfected lawns of a perfect, little town in the world of never getting anywhere, and finds herself smiling slightly – after all, good doesn't get anybody anywhere.

There's a quick stop back at the household to retrieve a box of money, from her biological father's gambling trip over the weekend in Vegas, and a wallet full of credit cards that Luna's quite sure that he doesn't know how to disable in case they've been stolen; most probably, he'll react in a blind rage and smash something valuable, and drown his sorrows in alcohol, forgetting about the stolen credit cards after a few hours, maybe by the next morning. He'll certainly not miss the useless mistake that people call his daughter. Then it's off to a desolate looking, grimy train station; the signs are in a lighter yellow color, and the ambiance feels like something drab from a war.

(She always comes back to the household, however – maybe, for the memories, maybe because she's stupid enough to believe that her father still loves her.)

iii.

There are moments in life where she fails to understand everything, anything. She's older now and it's still the case.

Luna sits still upon an Egyptian mattress, her legs dangling off the edge as she examines her reflection in the mirror – it's untainted by chemicals, like botulinum toxin and triclosan, and remains a pearly white, plain. The right eyebrow is slightly bushier than the other, darker outlines formed underneath both of her eyes not from a lack of sleep but from a lack of relaxation, and it seems as though, from the light, a bruise is starting to form on her left cheek. She closes her eyes, leans backward to pick up a small box (it belonged to her mother) and dab the milky powder onto the spot until it is nothing more than a slight abrasion of the skin.

Her flat blonde hair hangs limply off the sides, thinning with age, falling onto her pillow at night through restless dreams, torn out – she thinks that it's not long before there's none left. She wonders what would happen if she simply tried – tried to fit in with the rest of the students in her class; wore makeup, tried acting like them with their fake smiles and fake laughter and fake love. It couldn't possibly be that bad; it wasn't as though she wasn't like the rest of them. They had attended the same school for ten years, and the only difference was the amount of money that their families had made over the years, whether it was newfound or could be traced generations back.

She takes a deep breath, walking into her mother's closet, and picks out a light red dress – it's lowcut, perhaps see-through, but she's sort of sick of being that girl who sits under the chestnut tree and wallows in her own self-pity, reading the same tattered novels, over and over. Luna inhales one of those Advil pills to get rid of the ringing in her head, and applies the coats of powders, donning the uncomfortable shoes that bind her feet together, rendering her basically useless to do anything but walk aimlessly, occasionally tripping on a pebble or a stray piece of clothing, and she thinks that this might honestly work.

(Her father throws another insult and a bruise to her left shin, always going on about how his daughter's worthless, how she's never going to amount to anything, never be anything but the stupid girl who doesn't have anything – no legacy, no house in the Hampton's, no trust fund, no prescription drug problem that would never disappear; she thinks that even her father wants her to be normal.)

It's the only way, she supposes, to be accepted by father. Maybe he'll even love her again – he'll love her, someday; that's the only piece of hope that Luna holds onto, in the back of her mind.

.

Her rise to popularity is quick, and her downfall is expected, at least by Luna.

It's the endless cycle of time, she knows, that what goes up must always come down; she's almost surprised that the pretense of popularity has carried on for so long, creating a monster within herself until she became the monster, inhaling chemicals and powdering her face until there wasn't a person underneath the layers anymore, just an idea, a reminder of what used to be.

She packs her bags one day, staring at a photo frame of a younger version of herself, flitting around the orchard with her mum and dad, a broad smile stretching across her face, and every moment of that day was real. Luna stares at herself in the mirror, walking with her click-clack high heels, turning her chin slightly. Her skin is still a ghostly white, pale in complexion – that much hasn't changed – and her eyes are a milky blue, wasted as her thinning eyebrows are raised into a smirk; her lips are painted a dark red, the shade of blood that seeps out of her mouth at night, onto the bench of sweet porcelain, flushed away with the rest of her problems.

As if life could only be that easy – Luna's not sure if it's worth it anymore, to be fake, to keep on smiling when she feels like breaking down inside, keeping up castle walls and feeling the need to rip her own heart out in order to stop falling in love again, having her heart broken again and again, because she knows that nobody could truly love her – there's too much falseness in this world, and she doesn't have anybody anymore.

(Her father keeps on throwing the punches and the kicks, swearing about how his daughter's never going to be amount to anything, never going to be anybody, always going to be nobody.)

_It's the first time that my father's been right,_ Luna thinks, _I'm really nobody._ It isn't worth it – to sacrifice everything, for what? Being able to repeat the cycle, to be the predator, to roughly push aside the people who used to be her true friends, the only one who understood her, the only ones who were loyal to her when she didn't have anything, anyone except them. She stands in the middle of the school's courtyard with her loyal _(terrified)_ minions, talking to her best _(richest_) friends who admire her expensive, name-brand_ (stolen)_ handbag that dangles off of her finally small enough _(malnourished)_ shoulders, and nobody really knows her.

The downfall's quick enough – one of the other girls in the school has a party, and Luna just can't resist.

There's a dress at the back of the girl's closet – it looks like Luna's mother's dress, the one that she wore on the wedding day when everything used to be perfect; all Luna had of that wasn't even memories, but photographs that had faded over time into nothing more than breakable pieces of paper, burnt into the ashes and flame, in a mere moment of insanity, and then it was gone. She couldn't resist fingering the material, and once the dress was in her grasp, and folded into her purse, she couldn't resist taking it, placing it in her own room.

(The truth always comes out, though – good always wins, evil always ends up losing, cursed to an unhappy fate. Luna wonders if she's really the villain of her own life –_ can't villains have happy endings too?_)

iv.

Just when life seemed as though it couldn't get worse, high school comes along.

The girls wear higher heels until Luna wonders how they can see the world beneath them, and their fake, batting eyelashes grow longer. The red dresses that they wear, the sashes and headbands imprinted on their heads, a trademark they call it, something that leaves a legacy behind, only remind her of how gullible she was, falling into the trap, pretending for mere months that she could be like them.

After all, the only thing harder than getting in is staying in – she's not like them, with their supposed class and the money passed down through the generations; perhaps, a life like that was not meant for her. Endless amounts of money and credit cards aren't something that she should be looking for – a scholarship, a way out of this town seems more reasonable, more manageable, no matter how rare they might be. She meets a boy named Neville Longbottom who's sort of on the outside, too – not quite on the outside after the years pass by, perhaps.

She tries harder – just slightly. It seems as though actually showing up to all of her classes, hiding in the back corner of the room and occasionally being pulled into the discussion by a random new kid who doesn't understand that social destruction is a fate worse than death in this messed up town that they all find themselves living in, and Luna finds herself drawn into the books, drawn into the prospect of hope that life could possibly could get better for her. She reads the history textbooks and ends up with flawless grades (for the most part – she tries to forget the C's and the D's and the scarlet failure marks), a sign that there's a life outside of her books; there's a way that a scarlet A emboldened on the top of a paper isn't derogatory, that all one has to do is try.

(Her father slurs and rips up her report cards, in response – she keeps a serene expression, and throws a punch back before running out the door.)

.

Neville falls in love with another girl – her name's Hannah Abbott.

She wears light pink mittens and has flushed, rosy cheeks – she's always happy and smiling, as though nothing in the world wrong has ever happened in her life (which, it probably hasn't). Luna pretends as though it doesn't hurt for a while; she disguises the pain under layers of calmness and tranquility, the calm before a storm, perhaps. It's my fault anyways, she thinks, so there's no reason to blame it on anybody else. It's her fault for not being good enough, for not being a normal person.

Luna perches under the chestnut tree, drying her eyes as a group of students pass, giggling as though nothing's wrong in the world (and to them, nothing is) and wonders upon their innocence – innocence is fleeting, of course, yet she seems to be the only person who truly understands that there's more to human existence than new clothes and old money.

She cries alone, under a chestnut tree, knees on the floor, certain this is an inevitable fate, that it was going to happen all along, and wonders why she even cares.

.

In hindsight, perhaps sneaking out of the academy's dance – it's one of those slightly mandatory social events, the ones where individuals are too involved with one another to notice the handmade, knockoff dresses that are snuck in – to meet a simple boy, who was nothing more than a childhood infatuation, something that she had sworn not to get involved in (crushes never really turned out well for her) – who probably couldn't even remember her own identity – wasn't one of the best ideas that she had ever devised. Her mind runs in circles, her bloodied feet resting upon the hooker stilettos that her so called friends had forced her into. They cling to her feet tightly, and are soon after discarded by the curb, memories of running away falling back in place. Her teeth stretch into a small smile as the tulle of the dress is left behind in the bathroom stall – it reeks of puke and blood, some of the liquid smeared across the titles as though the janitors haven't kept the place pearly white in what seems to be centuries – as the small vent is left open, and she squeezes through, barely fitting, her thighs scraping against the metal edges.

There's an inkling of loneliness as she listens to the draining music, a few wisps before silence overwhelms the symphony of screams – a cacophony perhaps, but it sounds realistic and beautiful, instead of the typical falseness of a high school. She reminds herself that it isn't the life meant for her; she doesn't belong here, and there's no use in pretending that there'll be a way to stay in this small town lifestyle forever (sure, she'll miss the place that she grew up in and the not so deserted parking lot, but she won't miss her biological father and her lousy friends).

_Luna . . . Luna, is that you?_ She freezes for a moment – she came out of the vent a while ago, and has been wandering aimlessly across the town square. A figurine of a god, the sea god Poseidon, is a golden centerpiece in the heart of the town square is the object of her attention, and as she fingers the gold, she falls back into the habit of thinking how much it would sell for; it doesn't register in her mind about that safety precautions or the security cameras focused around the bust – and thinks that it's almost inevitable that this was actually going to happen.

She stutters, _Hey, how's Hannah?_ She mentally curses herself for asking the question – it's not the type of question that she wants to have an answer too; she stares down at the paved roads, and fingers the acetone and chemicals which cling to her nails, peeling off; the sides of her fingers reek of oranges, the color remaining on the insides, a clinging reminder of days spent in the kitchens, served as punishments for skipping school, months prior.

_Hannah?_ A frown appears on Neville's face. Luna thinks for a moment, before deciding not to say anything. There's a skip in her heart once she notices the bruise on her finger, the one that hasn't gone away for ages and the mangled toes which are twisted together like headphones in a pocket. She thinks about the way that Neville seems so unsure about everything – yet he sees, he sees the world for what it is (he isn't afraid to not be like everybody else, yet he still fits in quite normally) and she thinks about anything to distract herself from him. There's a sudden pain in her right leg, and she tries to listen to what he's saying – she honestly cares about what Neville has to say; if not, she already would have walked away. _You're a liar,_ he blurts out – the words sound like a distraction, something with a hidden meaning but she's almost tired of thinking too deeply, _you lied about who you are, where you're from -_

_We all lie, Neville_, she murmurs (because it's so damn true it hurts), _about what we do, what we feel -_

They both exchange an awkward laughter, as if something was needed to fill the silence between the two of them, as if silence is something deadly, and to be avoided at all costs (silence is a snake, a slip of venom inserted into the air, and it gnaws at knots, tying together mangled extremities until there is nothing left but broken shatters of empty souls). _You know, um, I have to get going – Hannah has a thing later,_ he motions behind his head, taking a gulp,_ to get going, y'know, so yeah._ He walks briskly in the other direction, purpose in his step. He doesn't look back.

_Yeah,_ she murmurs slowly, taking in the tranquility of the environment – it reminds her of the calm before a storm.

.

_I don't understand,_ Dean takes a breath, sipping a glass of wine, _You have the hottest girl in Roseville wrapped around your hairy finger,_ Neville ignores the insult, _And you choose to associate with a freak?_ If the situation wasn't so droll, Neville might have erupted into laughter at the comical expression on Dean's face.

Neville says nothing – simply watching his friend. Dean rarely stands still, no matter what kind of mood he is in, and so the fact that he is rather giving the impression of fooling around in high spirits right now doesn't necessarily mean that his mood is a pleasant one. He is so very different to Neville, who declared that his friend was much too energetic to be normal, while Hannah declared the opposite; in fact, these days, she rarely agreed with Neville. Dean was wearing an odd shade of orange now, and looked like Hello Kitty. Neville wore blue and almost blended in with the night.

Frankly, Neville often wonders where Dean came from, for he didn't seem to be quite like anyone else in Roseville. He's the relative of the Town Mayor, who is a stocky man, largely built around the waist with some hairs of a whisky mustache, and a hairline that is receding quite decently for the man's age, and also the cousin of the one of the school's drug cartel leaders. In fact, Dean is even unlike his own brother – from the way that he dresses (wild, eccentric colors that clash with his skin tone) to his actions (vibrant and cheery, unlike his eyes which always carry a certain melancholy nature); in fact, Dean was really—

(Neville looks at him again.)

—quite mad.

He walks towards the mahogany door, and motions towards Dean, who lazily throws him the keys. _Where do you think you're going?_ Neville lets out a forced laugh, _To do something I should have done a long time ago._

.

She flips on the television the next morning – she sits in the bed, a thin-count mattress which lumps on the floor uncomfortably; her shoulders ache and her feet are mangled together, her legs twisted; she examines herself in the mirror and notices that her hair seems to be falling out in large clumps and she brushes through it even harder, wincing as the knots come undone and wishes that life could be so simple (that one could push and push towards their problems, and then they would all disappear, before forming once more) and flips through the channels aimlessly. She lies on her stomach, and sips on a glass of orange juice – Sunday privileges at the academy. Her biological father earned enough gambling money to pay for extra privileges, so instead of living in the academy's doghouse, there had been an available spot in one of the girls' suite which included nutrition and the ability to choose classes; Luna was still taking in the luxury.

The news reporter is a tall sort of women, broad shoulders and all, dressed in a suit, using ample hand expressions as though there's something important going on – the woman murmurs, _Last night, there was a car crash on Sutton and 59. Nobody has been found as of yet, but the license plate has been identified to reveal the identity of the owner of the vehicle, Neville Longbottom, age sixteen._ The television is immediately switched off, and Luna walks into the mirror, knowing that this has all been her fault, it always is, she's the monster – he was on his way to see her, he had to have been.

There's a crash then – her fingers stab themselves into the wall, and she wants to feel the sort of pain where she'll have pain and nobody else will (because Luna deserves all the pain in the world, in her own mind); then, there's the reflection in the mirror, the reflection of a monster. Luna stares at the other girl in the mirror and watches her break down as glass shards envelop her fist – there's the faintest smell of blood and rust in the bathroom, and then nothing.

_(First loves hurt – first loves also don't last.)_

vi.

There's a knock on her door, in the middle of the night —

Luna's moved back into the Lovegood's mansion, somewhere in the midst of rural Wales where there's anything to take her mind of death and depression - she lives with her auntie and uncle, now. Nice folks, even if they are a little strange with the occasional comment about how Luna should get more involved with her father's practice of business, the Quibbler - a gossip magazine for the town. She wipes the sleepiness from bleary eyes, and pulls open the door, the corner of her lips twitching into a smile. _I didn't expect to see you here, Harry, _Luna greets, opening the door.

It's quite obvious why he's returned, she thinks - the bruises on his face are evident, despite being heavily powdered (she assumes it's from a guilty aunt, somebody along the lines of that). Harry walks in slowly, almost in a cautious manner; Luna walks into the kitchen, and takes one of those First Aid kits from the bathroom, dabbing the alcohol rubs to his face in an almost lackadaisical manner. _  
_

_I . . . I love you,_ he manages to get out, waiting for an immediate reaction – maybe that not-so-familiar smile or a laugh, anything but disgust; nevertheless, Harry's learnt not to expect the expected with her.

She gives a smile, a small one. _Are you sure about that? Do you know that? He nods, slowly, then all at once. It doesn't matter though – if you know that you love me, which I don't think that you do, knowing isn't good enough. You know those history vocabulary terms from Mr. Parolin's class – it doesn't mean that you love them, now does it?_ It makes sense, in her own mind – Harry stares at her, in confusion, as though she's spiraling out of control; perhaps she is.

I love Ginny, he corrects his statement,_ I . . . I don't love her – I care for her, she's Ron's sister, of course I care for her – but it's more than that. She's a normal person and she's good for me – everybody keeps on saying that._

Luna nods,_ I like Ginny,_ she speaks in a lackadaisical tone. _She's my friend – you should love her. Just, remember me, okay?_ Harry thinks that he'll never forget his best friend.

.

**i drank a lot of caffeine and used lots of writeordie while writing this;**

**so, finals are just finished so i'm probably going to write a lot more - i think that i might experiment a bit in the harry potter fandom, but is there any other fandoms that you guys think that i should write in? please leave feedback - all criticism is accepted, (: by the way, sorry about how the last part with harry was a bit rushed, but i wasn't really sure how to extend that bit and involve harry into it - also the characters are probably really ooc throughout this since it is a muggle!au**


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